Indigenous voice to parliament: Anti faction solicits funds from Liberals

The Liberal Reform Coalition found there was overwhelming opposition to the voice among its supporters.

Former Liberal leader Bill Hassell.

Former West Australian Liberal leader Bill Hassell has started soliciting donations from party supporters to fund the No campaign against the Indigenous voice to parliament, sparking concerns among some within the party.

An email to the mailing list of the Liberal Reform Coalition, obtained by The Australian, invites the faction’s supporters to transfer funds to a bank account in the name of Mr Hassell and Ian Marshall. The funds, the email says, would be used to fund direct activities of the LRC in opposing the voice, including meetings, flyers, corflutes and advertising, as well as supporting other organisations or bodies fighting against the referendum. Any funds not spent, the email says, would remain “as general funds held for the LRC”.

Mr Hassell told The Australian he had been spurred to take action given the lack of effort from the state party to help raise money to campaign against the voice.

“The Liberal Party hasn’t requested any money from me, as a longstanding member, towards the No campaign,” he said.

Asked if he thought the party wasn’t doing enough in the state to help the No campaign, Mr Hassell said he “didn’t want to get into that”. He said he had decided to set up the account after fielding multiple enquiries from individuals keen to support the No campaign.

The LRC had checked electoral laws and would comply with any relevant regulations, he said.

“If a group of people want to give money for a cause, they’re entitled to. We still have a limited degree of freedom in this country, although there’s a lot of people trying to destroy it,” Mr Hassell said.

The LRC was formed in the aftermath of the Liberals’ 2021 state election defeat that saw the party reduced to just two of 59 lower house seats in the WA parliament.

The group has been pushing hard for reforms aimed at diminishing the influence of power­brokers on the party.

WA is shaping as a key battlegrounds for the referendum, with support for the voice sagging there. The difficult introduction of the state’s new Aboriginal Cultural Heritage Act has also been seized upon by critics as an indicator of how the voice would function.

Liberal leader Libby Mettam has said she would be voting yes in the referendum, but she has not been actively campaigning on the issue.

The LRC’s push to get involved in the voice campaign followed a survey of the group’s mailing list. Some 85.7 per cent of the respondents, Mr Hassell said, had agreed that the LRC should take a position on the voice and a “similar” percentage said that position should be against the constitutional change.

A spokesman for the Liberal Party of WA said in a statement that the LRC was neither an entity of, nor associated with, the party.

“It is up to all individuals taking part in referendum campaigns to ensure they are complying with all relevant aspects of electoral law, including funding disclosures,” he  said.

“We encourage all Liberal Party members who wish to make donations during the referendum campaign to do so via formal and authorised channels.”

The email is understood to have caused discomfort among some Liberals.

One party source said they had “never seen anything like it” and expressed concern that funding that would typically be directed to the party would instead head to the LRC.

The vast majority of the LRC’s supporters are understood to be based within the Curtin and Tangney electorates, which are the two biggest sources of funds for the party.

Other sources said they believed the party’s campaigning on the voice needed to be managed centrally and sensitively.